Australian girls are being targeted online by sadistic young men, who treat their victims as if they were characters in a video game, the new head of the Australian Federal Police has revealed.

Commissioner Krissy Barrett said online criminal networks are intimidating, exploiting and controlling girls with low self-esteem or mental health disorders to perform serious acts of violence on themselves, siblings, others and pets.

They have identified 59 people as being part of the network in Australia and arrested three people aged between 17 and 20.

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"They are crimefluencers, and are motivated by anarchy and hurting others, with most of their victims pre-teen or teenage girls," Barrett told the National Press Club in her first major speech. 

Barrett said young men from Western, English-speaking backgrounds are engaged in the "twisted type of gamification" where they treat and trade their victims as they would if they were characters in a video game.

"These groups have a similar culture to multiplayer online gaming culture, and they hunt, stalk, and draw in victims from a range of online platforms," she said.

"To be accepted into these networks, the perpetrators often must have to pass a test or undertake a task such as providing videos of the self-harm of others or other gory content.

"This is where mainly vulnerable girls are being victimised.

"In this new, twisted type of gamification, perpetrators reach a status or new level in their group when they provide more content, showing more extreme acts of depravity and sadism.

"And in some cases, perpetrators trade their victims with each other, just like an online game.

"Once traded, a new perpetrator can control their new victim."

These offenders are believed to be motivated by their own amusement or to be popular online.

The criminal networks they are part of have no centralised hierarchy or single ideology and are attracted to violent extremism, nihilism, sadism, Nazism, and Satanism.

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The AFP has set up Taskforce Pompilid to investigate and arrest these crimefluencers.

Federal police and Microsoft are developing a prototype AI tool that will interpret emojis and Gen Z and Alpha slang in encrypted messages and chat groups to identify sadistic online exploitation.

The AFP has also provided information to departments and state and territory police to help them navigate the new trend and is working with partners overseas, who have arrested another nine people.

"Internationally, information provided by the AFP has contributed to arrests for murder, inciting suicide, inciting harm online, violent sexual offences, possession of child abuse and child sexual abuse material, as well as cybercrime offences such as unauthorised access of data and attempted extortion of organisations," Barrett said.

"A sub-group within the Five Eyes Law Enforcement Group has also been established to target these groups."

Barrett encouraged parents and guardians to be aware of the rising trend and speak with their children, letting them know that they can talk about uncomfortable online experiences with a safe adult.

"You can encourage safe conversations by talking regularly about online activities and apps, encouraging critical thinking, and reassuring kids that they won't be punished for coming forward if they think they have done something wrong," she said.

"You can look out for warning signs that include self-harm, changes in eating or sleeping habits, sudden withdrawal from friends, families or activities, use of extreme behaviour, extreme language or symbols, and rejection of previously held morals."

Readers seeking support can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or beyond blue on 1300 22 4636.

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A young humpback whale has been found dead tangled in shark nets south of Sydney, prompting renewed calls to remove the "barbaric walls of death".

The Department of Primary Industries, which oversees the state's shark program, said its shark net contractors found the two-year-old mammal floating upside down off Wombarra Beach, in northern Wollongong, during a routine inspection yesterday morning.

It was found with a shark net tangled around its tail and side fin.

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ORRCA, a non-profit rescue organisation, also received reports and is working with the Wollongong City Council, National Parks and Wildlife Service, and the Local Aboriginal Lands Council are managing the incident.

A National Parks and Wildlife Service spokesperson said this was a "very sad incident".

The cause of death remains unclear until the whale undergoes a necropsy, but choppy weather conditions have hampered efforts to retrieve the eight-metre body.

The dead whale is feared to attract sharks to the area, with the public advised to stay clear of it and avoid entering the water. 

The Wollongong City Council has temporarily shut the patrolled Scarborough and Coledale beaches to swimmers and surfers as a precaution until further notice.

Animal groups, councils and politicians have long been calling for shark nets to be removed from beaches across the state, arguing that it does not deter sharks and leads to other endangered sea animals being caught and killed in the nets.

According to data obtained from the Department of Primary Industries, almost 90 per cent of the animals caught in shark nets in the 2024 to 2025 season were non-target species and 67 per cent died.

The animals killed included four dolphins, seven threatened turtles, and four critically endangered grey nurse sharks.

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Following yesterday's death of a humpback whale, Greens spokesperson for healthy oceans Senator Peter Whish-Wilson urged federal Environment Minister Murray Watt to remove a legislation exemption that allows state-controlled shark control programs.

"What further proof do governments need that shark nets do not work, and can even attract sharks to beaches where they can feed on marine wildlife caught in these barbaric walls of death," he said.

"Governments can help keep ocean-goers safe by supercharging investment in modern-day alternatives to outdated and ineffective shark nets and drumlines.

"These include subsidising shark shield personal deterrent devices, shark spotter programs, eco-shark barriers, bite-proof wetsuits, and improving public education."

The NSW government puts up shark nets at 51 beaches across eight councils between Newcastle and Wollongong when temperatures begin to warm from September.

Six of those councils, including the Wollongong City Council, have passed motions in support of removing the shark nets. 

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The Department of Primary Industries had planned to remove shark nets at three spots in the Northern Beaches, Waverley and Central Coast councils this summer to trial its effectiveness.

But the death of a 57-year-old father killed in a shark attack at Dee Why in September caused the government to scrap the trial completely.

"In light of the tragedy that has occurred at Dee Why on the weekend, we need to be sensible about what the community would accept at this time," Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty said at the time.

A Department of Primary Industries spokesperson said the government will continue to investigate new shark mitigation technologies to minimise the impact on marine animals while also protecting beachgoers. 

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Astronomers have captured a stunning new image of the Milky Way as it's never been seen before.

The picture is the largest low-frequency radio colour image of the Milky Way ever assembled and took an Australian PhD student more than 40,000 hours to construct.

It reveals the Southern Hemisphere view of our Milky Way galaxy in vivid colour and reveals details that aren't clear in visible light.

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Silvia Mantovanini, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), spent 18 months putting the radio colour image together.

She spent 18 months constructing it based on data from two extensive GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky MWA (GLEAM) and GLEAM-X (GLEAM eXtended) surveys conducted in Western Australia.

The first survey took place over 28 nights in 2013 and 2014, and the second was conducted over 113 nights from 2018 to 2020.

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Using supercomputers, Mantovanini was able to construct an image that offers twice the resolution and ten times the sensitivity of the previous GLEAM-X photo from 2019.

It also provides insights into how stars form in different parts of the Milky Way, how they interact with other celestial objects, and how they die.

"This vibrant image delivers an unparalleled perspective of our Galaxy at low radio frequencies," Mantovanini said.

"You can clearly identify remnants of exploded stars, represented by large red circles. The smaller blue regions indicate stellar nurseries where new stars are actively forming."

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Associate professor Natasha Hurley-Walker from the same ICRAR team called it an "exciting milestone in astronomy".

"No low-frequency radio image of the entire Southern Galactic Plane has been published before," she said.

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Analysis: Talk about clutching at straws!

The latest criticism of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for wearing a T-shirt of one of his favourite bands, Joy Division, smacks not just of desperation from Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, but a complete lack of ideas.

It's the sort of attack that only serves to speed up the ticking of the clock that's counting down the end of her political future.

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The only thing saving her is that no one else wants the job of leading a party that has Buckley's of winning back power in the foreseeable future.

I had held some sympathy for the thankless task of opposition leader for Ley.

Her grasp on the Coalition top job was already tenuous, having only narrowly claimed the position in the wake of the party's electoral wipeout at the last election.

As a moderate and a woman, Ley appeared on paper to be a reasonable choice for the Liberals to start clawing back some of the centre of politics and attempt to win back voters who had abandoned the Conservatives in droves.

But instead of being backed in as leader, she's been undermined at every turn, had shadow ministers quit the frontbench in protest at the direction she wants to take the party, and become the face of a political rabble intent on eating its own, obsessing over internal dramas instead of offering a credible alternative government.

For democracy to work, we need a strong opposition that can hold those in power to account.

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The Coalition with Ley as leader is failing dismally, and the attacks she has chosen to launch against the prime minister are proof she's not up to the job.

It was bizarre when Ley called for Australia's Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd to be sacked after the prime minister's first face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump.

Rudd copped a lashing from the US president for his previous criticism of a man who doesn't take kindly to unkind words.

But the meeting and the entire US trip was a huge success, not just for Albanese but for the entire country.

And Rudd had worked tirelessly to help make it happen.

Ley's criticism of Rudd was a blunder that she was forced to walk back after even her own colleagues publicly admitted she got wrong.

Now, even more bizarrely, Ley has stood up in parliament to criticise the prime minister's choice of clothing when he flew home from the same US trip – swapping a suit and tie for a T-shirt of British band Joy Division.

She claimed it showed a "profound failure of judgement" to support a band that got its name from "a wing of a Nazi concentration camp where Jewish women were forced into sexual slavery", particularly "at a time when Jewish Australians are facing a rise in antisemitism".

She's right about the Joy Division name, but it's a very long bow to draw, trying to claim that makes the band or those who like their music antisemitic.

Joy Division is classed as a highly influential post punk rock band, and it's also ironic that Ley herself once claimed to be a punk rocker!

There are far more important issues for the opposition leader to hone in on than criticising the PM's choice of T-shirt.

At least 64 people have died in a massive police raid aimed at organised crime in Rio de Janeiro, security officials said.

Among the dead are four Brazilian police officers, they said.

Rio de Janeiro State Governor Cláudio Castro said the operation was still ongoing and the death toll may rise. Authorities also claimed on social media that at least 42 rifles were seized during the operation.

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Rio de Janeiro's government called the raid on Tuesday the largest of its kind in the state's history.

Police raids are common in the city of 13 million residents before international events, and next week, Rio will host a major climate conference, the C40 World Mayors Summit.

Video published by Reuters showed huge columns of black smoke emerging from the Alemão favela during the raid.

Photographs of Alemão in the aftermath showed the source: burned cars, constructed as barricades.

Authorities launched an operation aiming to "combat the territorial expansion" of the Comando Vermelho criminal group, Rio de Janeiro's government added in a lengthy thread on X.

The operation was in the works for over a year, the government said, and involved more than 2500 military and civilian police personnel.

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Comando Vermelho is Brazil's oldest active criminal organisation, according to the think tank InSight Crime. Its name, Portuguese for "Red Command," is a reference to its origins as a leftist prisoners' organisation formed during the military dictatorship that ruled over Brazil until 1985.

Since then, Red Command has become a massive, transnational criminal group, involved in drug trafficking and extortion. InSight Crime reports that in recent years, it has struggled with escalating violence from the state and other criminal militias.

Gang used drones, police claim

At least 81 people were arrested on Tuesday, according to a social media post by Rio de Janeiro's Police Department.

During the raid, gang members allegedly targeted police with a drone, authorities said.

"In retaliation, criminals used drones to attack police officers in the Penha Complex," Rio de Janeiro's state government said in a post on X, sharing a video of what appears to show a drone firing a projectile from the sky.

"Despite the attacks, security forces remain steadfast in the fight against crime," the state government added.

"This is the magnitude of the challenge we face," Castro said in a post, before using a term popular among tough-on-crime leaders in the United States and Latin America. "It is no longer common crime, it is narco-terrorism."

Past raids on similar slums in Brazil have attracted copious criticism from civil rights advocates. In May 2021, a raid in the Jacarezinho favela killed at least 25 people and led the Supreme Court to ban all police raids until the end of the COVID pandemic unless the circumstances were "absolutely exceptional."

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Nearly 3.5 million Australians admit they are problem or at-risk gamblers, according to a new study.

Of this, 622,000 people confessed they are problem gamblers, a figure that has risen 22 per cent from last year, the survey of nearly 17,000 Aussies over 18 by Roy Morgan said.

Problem gambling can be defined as a compulsive urge to gamble despite the negative impacts it could have on your financial, physical or mental health.

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The research reveals younger Australians are more susceptible to problem gambling.

A majority of those who say they are problem gamblers are under 35, with 4.6 per cent of them being between 18-24-years-old.

"A look at who the 'problem gamblers' are shows a concentration among younger Australians aged under 50," CEO of Roy Morgan Michele Levine said.

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The most recent government data revealed Australians spent over $31 billion on gambling, the highest figure ever.

This leads to significant financial stress and challenges for some.

Around 3.7 per cent of Aussies at risk of mortgage stress and 4.1 per cent of people at extreme risk of mortgage stress are problem gamblers.

"[This shows] problem gamblers are also likely to face other challenges," Levine added.

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Exclusive: Luke Bateman posted a 90-second TikTok about books in April and accidentally sparked a saga in the process.

Within six months, he'd amassed almost half a million social media followers, scored a book deal, started an audio book club, and announced his exclusive book podcast with Nine, In The Good Books.

But some critics claimed the former NRL player and TV bachelor didn't deserve it.

LISTEN NOW: You can download In The Good Books with Luke Bateman on Apple here and Spotify here.

Bateman, 30, was accused of capitalising on his privilege as a straight, white man for a golden ticket into the Australian publishing industry, which is notoriously difficult to break into.

Detractors demanded to know why someone with no manuscript or prior publishing experience deserved a two-book deal with major publishing house Simon & Schuster.

Others engaged in personal attacks, flooding his social media accounts with angry comments and messages.

"It really, really skyrocketed my anxiety," Bateman told 9news.com.au.

And with the first episode of In The Good Books dropping today, there could be more backlash on the horizon.

This time, Bateman is prepared for it.

"It doesn't bother me," he said, adding that he could "understand people's issues".

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More than 70 per cent of people working in Australian publishing identify as white, according to a 2022 survey, and authors of colour (especially women) face myriad challenges getting published.

Bateman acknowledges those disparities and is aware of his own privilege.

"But we can hold two truths at one time," he said.

"I can be very happy for myself, and also understand that other people see barriers to entry that they don't believe that I have."

And Bateman is genuinely happy with all that he has achieved over the last six months, particularly because he's a man.

Growing up in western Queensland, Bateman's childhood love of fantasy books put him at odds with the "culture of very hard-working country men" he describes in the first episode of In The Good Books.

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"I had a really dark season of life growing up [and] books were always the place where I felt like I belonged," he said.

"I felt so weird as a kid because I was in circles and cultures where … I really had to hide those parts of myself."

Bateman developed a deep shame over his love of reading and wants to make sure it doesn't happen to other Aussie blokes.

"Having men and boys read is a really deep passion of mine," he said.

Males aged 15 to 24 read less than any other population cohort in the country, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Barely 10 per cent of them read on any given day, and even the male demographic which reads the most – men aged 75 or over – lagged behind their female counterparts.

Women read more than men in every single age category.

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Bateman wants to get the male number up, not just for the boys but for the men, too.

As an adult, he struggled with gambling addiction and previously estimated he lost half a million dollars in just a few years.

He also faced depression after a serious knee injury ended his NRL career.

In his darkest moments, he returned to reading as a way to escape and he wants to empower other men to do the same.

"Books were the thing that gave me the ability to return to myself, and I want to ensure that other men and other boys can live out their imaginations and their dreams through books," he said.

"It's just so important to me to ensure that other people understand that joy.

"So that they too – whenever they're feeling disconnected, whenever they're feeling like the world doesn't see them – they have a place where they feel seen, and they feel heard, and they feel connected to themselves."

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Since joining BookTok earlier this year, Aussies have seen a new side to Bateman.

Gone is the grass-stained NRL player, or the suited-up Bachelor looking for love.

In his place is a version of Bateman who gets teary-eyed over fictional characters in the cab of his tractor on a farm in Western Queensland, who dances to Taylor Swift's latest releases and waxes poetic about his favourite fantasy epics.

This, Bateman says, is the real him – and it's the reason he's been so successful online.

Have you got a story? Contact reporter Maddison Leach at

Episodes drop weekly starting today and Bateman has promised fans everything from book recommendations, to author interviews, and even a chat with the woman responsible for his love of reading; his mum.

He also teased that he might reveal some details from his debut novel, which he just finished the manuscript for.

"I've been pouring my heart and my soul into my writing and into my characters, into my story," he said.

"To release that into the world will be very meaningful to me, and I'm very proud."

In the Good Books is published by Nine, which is also the publisher of this website.

More than 5000 customers are still without power and almost 11,000 insurance claims have been made after Brisbane's severe storms on Sunday.

The Insurance Council of Australia has declared the storm a "significant event" as the number of claims rises.

More than 80 Energex crews are working to repair damage done by the storm, as well as gusty winds that swept through the city yesterday and caused more branches to fall on powerlines.

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In total, more than 120,000 customers have been affected over the last two days.

Brisbane City Council has opened free green waste drop offs at recourse recovery centres as piles of vegetation build up across suburbs all over the city.

The city woke to rain and a cool change today, a welcome reprieve after yesterday's scorching 38 degree heat.

Brookfield State School and Upper Brookfield State School remained closed today.

The rain has helped to dampen a fire burning on North Stradbroke Island overnight.

The fire is burning at Advice level near Duck Lagoon and is sending smoke across the island.

The south-east coast including Brisbane, Ipswich and the Lockyer Valley, the Gold and Sunshine coasts north to the Fraser Coast, are no longer subject to a fire ban today.

Much of the state's south-west is still under a total fire ban, with hot and windy weather extending north to Bundaberg, Gladstone and Rockhampton as well as Mackay, Whitsunday and Townsville.

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A Sydney mum has revealed an anonymous letter she received, threatening to poison her barking dogs with an "Erin Patterson mushroom recipe".

The family, who lives in the city's North Shore, received a typed note in the mail last month which demanded they "do something" about their barking dogs.

"Neighbours with the f—ing barking bulldog," the note begins.

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"Your woeful inattention to your dogs and their continual barking is driving your neighbours to distraction.

"I notice they appreciate the treats that I throw into your backyard and stay quiet for a period. I am now looking at Erin Patterson Mushroom Recipes to make treats (I hope they like them)."

The letter ended by claiming the council said to "do what it takes to get your dogs to be quiet".

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"It was shocking, I was horrified… almost in tears," the owner told 9News.

She contacted the local council to ask if any other neighbours had complained about their dogs.

"No one had, so the threat really did come out of the blue," she said.

The family have since set up cameras in their backyard.

In post to a local social media group, the letter recipient said she has contacted the police.

Police have taken the letter as evidence.

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She said her dogs are old and do bark often, but that they did not deserve to die.

"Trust me the dogs barking annoys me as well," she wrote.

"I just want my dogs to live [sic] there last days in peace and not die by poisoning."

9news.com.au has contacted North Sydney Council for comment.

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Luxon and Trump are yet to meet in person.